


A Battlefield was once just a Field

by Webtrinsic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Gets a Hug, Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano Friendship, Dead People, Delusions, Graphic Description, Hallucinations, Hugs, Hurt Ahsoka Tano, Jedi, Melancholy, Minor Injuries, Nightmares, Padawan Ahsoka Tano, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Anakin Skywalker, Protective CT-7567 | Rex, Protective Obi-Wan Kenobi, Protective clones, Self-Discovery, Self-Reflection, Shock, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:00:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27363133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Webtrinsic/pseuds/Webtrinsic
Summary: Ahsoka Tano is still a teenage girl in a gruesome unforgiving war. There are times this is more obvious than others.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 12
Kudos: 148





	A Battlefield was once just a Field

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lieutenant_Croutons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lieutenant_Croutons/gifts).



> Listen to SYML'S "I wanted to leave," for full effect because it's what i wrote this to
> 
> i needed a fic where she's basically just in shock because shock is great whump
> 
> also go vote if you can

The soil is heavy against her back, each root and plant curling against her skin, signing her with a unique signature. Unguarded rays beat her skin in a way that will surely make it flake the next morning. The wind is light against her exposed epidermis, making bumps rise to create valleys for the wind to run through.

There is no then, now, or even what is to come. It’s her own personal moment, away from influence and woes most pressing. She is here then, alone and not. There are no creatures or beings around, not even something as small as an insect, or something hidden below the very ground she sat.

She doesn’t feel alone, the lack of roaming life incomparable to the energy entangling with her being, stemming from the grass and the sun’s rays deep down into her core. There is no better company. Not here where everything she’d seen and experienced evaded her thoughts.

In fact her life before this bristled out into the air, the reality each situation once held melding into a farce. Slipping through her hands in a matter that eroded their callouses. The memories are nothing then, not even real experiences because the marks they whittled onto her person have now disappeared.

Her soul is being molded in the same manner a running stream shapes the clay beneath it, adhering it to it’s grand design, burying rocks and other debris within to corrode into something beautiful before diminishing it entirely.

Surely there are reasons she should resist this conformity yet she cannot bring herself to do so. Where she was before was not always pleasant, it is a fact she knows but doesn’t know why she knows because she remembers nothing of it.

Bits of feeling tap at her temples, quicken her heart. They are endeared moments where she knows undoubtedly she was cared for even in the most perilous of circumstances. Her decision making skills falter, her normal instinctual thrum quiet. She cannot listen or even conjure up enough thoughts or emotion to ponder if she needs to hold those remnants tighter or if she should pull herself off this meadowed ground and search.

For what exactly she would be looking for she doesn’t know. Mainly something that would invoke the same basis of feeling as those fleeting wanderings in her head. Her limbs move without hesitation, more spry and cleanlier than they’ve been in ages. At least that is what she assumes or knows intrinsically when she knows nearly nothing else. There are blemishless under her hands where there is also the phantom feeling of raised scars and scratched epidermis that isn’t actually present when she looks again.

Ignoring it, she begins her walk. It’s green as far out as she can see with an ocean painted sky, and a sun that no one can hide from dances. She walks and walks with nothing in her path, nothing jumping out to her with anything that could resemble something she once knew, and the further she walked the further those feelings were out of her reach.

Admittedly she is as close to peace as seemingly possible, the only obstacles being her curiosity keeping her tethered to something this place no longer wants her tethered to. Frustration at her own lack of answers is the closest thing to discomfort she encounters until there is a stinging pain in her leg.

 _There shouldn’t be any pain here_. Why she knows that is also new and unquestionable, so she panics and heaves because she shouldn’t be feeling something as physical and seemingly carnal as the string emanating from her thigh.

The wind is picking up then with every breath she scrapes out, there is a sound to it that hadn’t breached her excellent hearing before, and that alone is what makes this reverie strange.

With the wind a fog approaches, it’s sudden appearance and thickness jarring enough to cause the girl to question if it was her breaths alone that caused such a development. Ultimately it was not because there is the splatter of rain on her skin, some of it seemingly leaking from her pores, and it must explain the fog. There is no reason for it not to.

She is still alone, rocks at her feet that weren’t there before that she trips over a few times before she realizes her feet won’t just go through them. She felt light enough, it’s not her fault it was her first thought that anything but herself, the wind, rain, and the sun’s rays and mossy grass could truly touch her. 

Something as jagged as stone eluded her, at least it should here. Ahsoka isn’t quite sure if her mind’s making up these rules as she walks or if the force or something else is. It is likely the force, it explains nearly everything, and if it didn’t...well she could always just pretend.

It seemed easier than working it out, than trying to entangle the words written in the wind that grew louder until they tapered off into sounds that resembled dying screams. The sound hurt her montrals, the rain falling onto them warbling the blow. She knows she cannot stay here and listen to the wind's noise so she continues her walk even if it’s seemingly getting her nowhere and there are more and more rocks for her to maneuver around.

It’s pouring now and the sun has set, the drops are most heavy on her leg and the side of her face, stemming from her temple and raining down the crease of her left lekku. It doesn’t stop.

It’s almost as if her walk meant something, and if it had she doesn’t know anymore. The togruta has long since passed the reaches of rocks, the sprouting hope that once she passed them the sun would dry the droplets staining her skin diminished. It continued to pour, and with that sopping wetness came the renewal of her senses.

It wasn’t the same sharp jab to her leg that pulsed in the slightest as she walked, it was deeper than that, a claw at her back head tail, the searing agony bursting from her temple, the raw bruising against her knees and lacerations to her shins and exposed arms.

Her torso is stunted, wrapped and twisted, unhelped by her occasional upheavals. There isn’t just pain, there is also movement, her hands are shaking, and her knees even as she treks further into the clearing are vibrating. It must have been a recent development because her tremor hadn’t affected her walk at all.

It hadn’t then but she doesn’t know if it will affect her further down the line so she plants herself back on the ground, tucking her knees to her chest, suddenly feeling cold. The teen assumes it is the rain’s doing when it’s really not, if she was paying close enough attention she would realize her skin is what was cold, and the rain itself on her skin was eerily warm.

When she tries to look down at her knees and her arms wrapped around them, she sees nothing, not even the bridge of her nose between her eyes. There is reason to be alarmed but the way she felt in her head explained her lack of parts better than logic could.

She is all sense and no substance. There is a slight fear that she too will become the rain and sink into the moss below. It was unaffected by her lack of weight, and if it was; it was easily covered by the darker hues forming because of the water falling onto it.

There is the conscious effort to blink, the task now one she asks herself to do rather than simply let it. A feeble attempt to bring her back to herself and distance her from the ice building up within.

There are no fractals on the ground so it must be coming from inside. It’s not as worrisome a thought as it should be.

* * *

It’s Rex who finds the fifteen year old, he is at her side in a moment’s notice, sending a distress through the comms because she is curled up tightly in on herself, her blood and other’s coating her entirely.

She isn’t shivering, yet as he yanks his helmet off to get a better look, crouching in front of her, he can see her eyes are half open, staring blankly at the mud. He’s seen the gaze before, in his brothers, and in the faces of civilians who just happened to be caught in the crossfire.

He’s been built and raised to answer the Jedi, but seeing this young girl locked in shell shock, knowing she’d been given a shot of adrenaline through the leg on the battlefield to restart her heart before walking over the corpses of her troops in such a deep trance she didn’t notice the harm coming to her, there was a spark of hatred for the supposed keepers of the peace.

“Rex, did you find her Rex?” The general’s voice is frantic through the comm, he’d been at the man’s side when the girl’s heart had stopped and had nearly been affected by the blast of power and grief that the man had set off.

He’d killed at least twelve dozen men with that first reaction alone, and it was obvious he’d been holding back the best he could.

“Yes, Sir,” It’s an automatic response that doesn’t hold his usual tone in the way it should, he’s sure it doesn’t help the general. Ahsoka doesn’t move or flinch at their conversation, Rex had at least been expecting her to maybe come back to herself at the sound of her master’s voice but she hasn’t stirred from her coiled position, and her eyes remained glued to the muck.

There’s a wound on the side of her temple he worries isn’t helping her listlessness. She’s surely concussed even if at the moment he can’t truly test her eyes, she’s in too much shock for her body to give any real response, but she is awake and that will have to do for now.

Rex is honest with himself in thinking that he should hug the girl, warm her up and make her feel safe, she is his sister like the other clones are his brothers. He refrains in that sadly she is still like him, a killing machine, who even now vulnerable and helpless could react mindlessly and break him into pieces, even without her lightsabers.

Speaking of, they aren’t on her hips, he knows some other clones had already found them. Had already reported her resuscitation and then her sudden absence. Ahsoka looks nothing like herself without them, it is truly a wonder how two configured pieces of metal with glowing blades made her look so different. There are some things that cannot be explained but he thinks he knows the answer to this particularly query.

It is because the weapon alone designates her as a Jedi, the fighters of this war, and it is enough of a distinction that it reaps her of her childhood. 

_How could they?_

It’s night and it takes longer than Rex, and certainly Anakin likes for them to get there. Still she is unmoving, even as the mud gushes under the chosen one’s feet when he rushes over.

The man falls to his knees, looking ready to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, unaware that for the moment she is a gentle creature in need of being coaxed. Rex’s hand on the man’s arm is a gut reaction that has them both freezing. 

He let’s go immediately, and Anakin swallows, taking the hint and thankfully not saying anything before assessing his padawan. His eyes squint in the way they usually do when he’s utilizing the force, whatever he does it is enough for the girl to finally blink.

It’s a slow action, one that repeats once and then twice, the color in her eyes slowly returning. Her gaze shifts from the mud to her knees, taking them in thoughtfully as if reaquanting herself with her body.

Kix is slowly approaching but doesn’t continue even if it’s obvious he’s itching to get closer. It still isn’t safe, Anakin is the one who has to make the first move. The girl lifts her head with obvious strain, the angle it’d been at likely bothersome, just another thing to be worked out in medbay.

Her eyes shift over to Rex for a second, before pulling to Anakin, then to the general’s hand that he is extending forward. Showing no signs of fear or resistance, the master cups his padawan's face, letting her rest her weary head against his palm before her eyes flutter shut and she is caught by sleep’s net.

Anakin is careful as he strategically gather’s her up into his arms, silent as he heads back to their speeder so they can get back to the _Resolute_. The commander’s head is tucked carefully into her master’s throat, body folded onto his lap, his protective hold warding off Kix from tending to anything that wasn’t her shins. 

They knew if the danger was too pressing he’d hand her over, but for now he wasn’t going to let her go until they were in medical. Luckily none of them were dumb enough to try to convince him otherwise, or even worse, take her from him.

* * *

Obi-Wan’s hand on Anakin’s shoulder is firm as they wait outside the mind healers. The chosen one’s leg is bouncing, seconds away from getting to his feet and beating down the door. 

He wants his padawan. He wants her to look up at him with her mischievous eyes and banter with him until he drowns in her snippy remarks. He wants to hold her in an embrace and purge the thought that he almost had to retrieve her lifeless body off the battlefield.

It’d been a fairly new clone in their ranks that had the adrenaline shot, after seeing her on the ground he’d acted quickly enough to jab it into her leg before he croaked. It’s a pity Anakin cannot thank him. All he could do was make sure the man got a decent burial.

The council hadn’t been happy he went out of his way to retrieve the body, let alone pay the man a service. Anakin didn’t care. 

The doors open and the healers look stoic as usual, Ahsoka trails behind them, they bow and return back to their station and Ahsoka is left standing awkwardly. Her lekku are dark meaning she is embarrassed and Anakin is on his feet within seconds, ready to assure there is nothing to be embarrassed about, that he’s sorry-he doesn’t get to.

The girl looks to Obi-Wan almost as if she’s deciding something, before her head pivots back to the closed doors to make sure they won’t open again before she is diving into an embrace.

Anakin returns it heartily while Obi-Wan look’s away, giving them this. He could do that because if he was in Anakin’s shoes he’d have wanted a hug too. 

* * *

She is still afraid, there are bits and pieces coming back to her. The meadow in her mind transforms little by little. Blood is rain, rocks are unmoving bodies, and the grass is nothing more than filthy mud. There isn’t any fog, it’s all debris, and the wind is just dying men’s screams.

She’d been in limbo for the moment, and then awakened anew. She’d trudged through a battlefield with clouded eyes as she was hurt and the clones fought to save her. She has nightmare’s and her master is normally always there to comfort her.

One night he’s not and she figures she knows where he is, not wanting to call him home from Padme she curls into her bunk feeling the same cold sprout in her chest as it did then before her grand master’s presence invites her in.

Bundled in her blanket, the girl sneaks through the temple until she reaches his room, there is tea that stems off any traces of ice within. He watches and waits for her to explain, which she does.

There is the struggle with the grass really being mud, and why her mind brought her to confusing peace. Along with the reluctant admission that as much as she tried she couldn’t hold onto them. His smile is melancholy, even as he moves in close to lift her face by the chin.

Her tears are swept away, and she can’t stop the trembling blabber of the damn grass being mud, it will not leave her mind, and it hurts so badly. There’s a reason, she knows it, _like she should_ , it’s his few words that make her understand and feel the least bit better.

“A Battlefield was once just a Field,” and she was once just a girl.

**Author's Note:**

> Snap: allisonw1122  
> Tumblr/twitter: webtrinsic1122  
> Insta:Webtrinsic


End file.
